


A Better Way To Die

by Soul_in_the_Starlight



Series: Recovery [1]
Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:40:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soul_in_the_Starlight/pseuds/Soul_in_the_Starlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Better than having your throat ripped out in a cellar, by a two-bit solicitor...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Better Way To Die

**Author's Note:**

> My first Being Human fic. Set post-warehouse explosion in S408, but before Hal is tied to the chair.

Hal wakes, his neck and back feeling stiff, realising he has fallen asleep, face down, fully clothed, on top of his bedcovers. He checks his chin for saliva when he realises Alex is sitting on the end, and tries to feign some sort of purpose to his current state, other than being completely exhausted from the day's events. There isn't really any precedent for being saved from the destruction of one's peers. It has taken its toll.

He shifts and turns over to face Alex, propping himself up on his elbows and forearms. She seems to be paying him no attention anyway.

"Where's Tom?"

The ghost looks at him, absent-mindedly, as if she hasn't even noticed he's  there.

"Hmm, what? Oh, right, yeah, he went to his room ages ago, we thought it was probably best to let you sleep it off." She half-smiles at him, and he notices she has one of her big boots up on his bed. He says nothing, there is little point.

"Sleep what off? My crazed blood addiction? My inability to reign in my base instincts?" He doesn't meant to sound so bitter.  
  
 _Ah well, the truth will out._

Alex side-eyes him, making a tutting noise.

"Well, that and your horrible, girly sobbing, yeah." She throws a small travel pack of tissues at him.

Hal's brow furrows as they hit him in the chest.

"My _what_?"

Alex takes her foot off the bed, and turns to face him, looking horribly smug.

"Don't you remember? You had a total meltdown in the van on the way home, started crying and generally being a big wuss about how everyone you ever connect with dies, how horrible your life is, how you wished I hadn't saved you."

Hal's eyes grow wider with every word, his face a mask of disgust and shame.

"Oh Jesus, did I _really_? I honestly don't remember…"

"What really?" She interrupted his apology with a grin. "Don't be so daft, of course you didn't, but it was worth saying, you should see your face. Oh wait, you _can't_ , what with being a bloodthirsty vampire and all." This time it's Alex's voice that carries the bitterness. Hal looks away from her accusing gaze.

"So what _was_ I sleeping off?"

"I had to knock you out, you were getting a wee bit feisty with Tom. So I hit you. With The Complete works of Shakespeare." Alex gestures to the floor, and Hal notices the large compendium laying open on the floor, a few pages looking dog-eared.

He puts his hand to the back of his head, but the healing powers of his vampire blood have long fixed the injury, it's not even tender.

"Sorry, but you were being a dick." 

Hal sits up, his face in his hands.  
  
 _Is this the beginning? The long decent into the dark side of his nature? How long before 'being a dick' turns to 'full-scale massacre of the innocent' this time?_

"You should probably go…"

Alex catches his arm as he tries to lay back down.

"Before I go… I need to ask you something," her eyes are wide and pleading. Hal sighs, he's in no mood for schooling the newly deceased.

"Can't it wait?"

"Please?"

He sits back up. It's progress at least, that he doesn't throw off her hand, which still rests on his arm, and yet doesn't; in that weird way that ghosts are there and yet not, existing outside of the current dimension, and yet tied to it. The sensation hasn't got any less weird in 400 odd years.

"Fine. What is it you wish to know?" He sits up properly, feet on the floor, hoping his body language doesn't look as awkward as he feels right now.

Alex removes her hand from his arm, and starts playing with the skirt of her dress.  
  
 _She's nervous. What the hell is she going to ask him?_

"When we met in the bar, you said some things to me, and I've had time to think, and I need to know. Did you mean them, or was it the bloodlust talking?"

Hal frowns, the whole thing curiously hazy.

"Which particular things?" He asks, his voice thankfully free of sarcasm or irritation.

Alex picks at her skirt even harder.

"You said you liked my mouth. And my neck, and that we could have sex…" She turns to look at him.  
  
 _She's trembling. Do ghosts show fear?_

Hal gazes at her sympathetically.

"I'm sorry, that's out of the question now, you're a ghost… and It's really not a good thing for me to do..."

"Oh, _no_ , I don't mean… not that I _wouldn't_ … I just… did that come from you, or was that just a line from from your inner demon? To get me in the sack so you could kill me?"

Hal's brows furrow more deeply.

"I'm not sure what you want me to say…"

"Do you… _Did_ you… actually fancy me, or was that a cheap line? I just… call it vanity, I don't know, I just wondered if someone actually found me attractive before I died, because I'm never going to hear it again."

She looks thoroughly miserable, and Hal feels throughly cornered.  
  
 _Is there a right way to answer this that won't earn him another smack around the head?_

"Alex. I… well, blood is a bit like… a bit like alcohol. It lowers inhibitions, makes inner desires come to the surface. And yes, I won't lie, my biggest desire was to rip your throat out and feast on your blood, but…" he pauses, suddenly feeling the familiar heat of that desire start to burn inside, snaking along his veins as he thinks about what he would have done. 

_No._

"…But… yes,  I found you attractive, that came from me. It's not something that would have been said had I not drunk blood, I need to keep that side of me…" He stops, feeling the inner turmoil starting to rise, his pupils gradually widening as he looks at Alex, taking note again, of those plump lips, that slender throat…

"When?" Alex interrupts, moving closer to him.

"What? I'm not sure what you…"

"When would you have killed me? Before, during or after we had sex?"

The question dampens the inner fire momentarily, and Hal gives her a look.

" _Before_? That's disgusting…"

"So during then?"

"Alex, why are you so..?" He stops.  
  
 _Her hand is on his leg._

"Before or after you came? Or during? Do you even do that? Is killing what gets you off? Is that your orgasm, killing during sex?" 

She has her other hand on his arm again, and she's so much closer now, those big eyes wide and wild…

He looks at her hands on him, the grip tight, tangible, definitely there. He swallows hard. 

_She's a ghost, you can't feed on her._

Suddenly he's on top of her, pushing her back on to the bed, pinning her down, her face caught between fear and.. _arousal_. He leans down close, his voice a seductive whisper, his breath against her ear.

"I would have fucked you right to the edge, and then… and _then_ , I would have slowly and tenderly killed you as you fell over it; _nothing_  would be so sweet and so heady… as tasting your blood as you climaxed…"

She can feel him, the weight of him, the pressure of his hands on her wrists, the unmistakable sign of his arousal against her thigh.

Then she's kissing him.  
  
 _Or is he kissing her?_  
  
Their mouths are joined, and their hips  are pressing together. She's making those noises, those soft, _delicious_ noises, as she gives in to him and his urgency, as he presses harder against her, and then his lips leave her mouth, his tongue and teeth sliding and grazing along her throat.

_She's a ghost._

And her legs wrap around him, holding him to her, and he lets go of her hands. Hers snake around his back, grasping at his arse as he's rutting against her, and then she's shouting, but it's not his name; it's Tom she's calling out for, and he's angry, and fights to be free of her and there's a shadow and pain and then…

_Nothing._

Tom helps Alex push Hal's unconscious body off her, rolling it on to the bed. The Shakespeare compendium lies heavy near his back, where Tom dropped it.

"Are you alrigh'?" Did 'e 'urt ya? I was waitin' outside, cos we were testin' 'im out, but what if I 'adn't been?" Tom helps Alex up, and the look of concern on his face is so sweet, she actually blushes.

"I'm fine, thanks. But you were right, he's definitely still a problem child. If he can't talk to _me_ without trying it on, he's definitely not safe to be around actual people."

Tom looks at her with a frown.

"Yer did lead 'im on though, with all that sexy talk. It's not becomin' in a young lady to be talkin' like that. It done the job an' that, but it weren't a fair fight."

"Thanks, mum, but it's the twenty first century. And we had to be sure. Girls are more direct this day and age.  He's a good-looking guy, girls are going to want some of that. I did, and look where that got _me_!" 

Tom sighs, and nods.

"Well, OK, we do get pretty girls in the cafe, an' _sometimes_ , I 'ave to make him go an' polish the cutlery out back an' serve 'em meself."

Alex smirks. "Is that a euphemism?"

"Is that a what now?" Tom looks puzzled.

"Never mind. I think we need an intervention. We need to save him, and the world, from himself."

"How are we goin' to do that? We can't keep 'im 'ere, 'e's an adult, we can't jus'  ground 'im.  "

Alex reaches out and gently strokes the unconscious vampire's forehead. He moans softly at her touch. 

"I don't know, Tom, but he's not safe… he's a danger to others, and to himself."

Tom is halfway out of Hal's bedroom, and Alex runs to catch up.

"Where are you going?" she calls down the stairs.

"To the 'ardware shop," he shouts back, "I've got an idea,  I won't be long. Then we can do this inter-mention thing you was on about."

Alex returns to Hal's room, and sits beside him. He frowns in his sleep. She ruffles his hair gently, and leans down, whispering.

" _It sounds like a better way to die_."


End file.
